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Reuters
Reuters
Health

UK health minister says COVID-19 testing system is not chaotic

People queue outside a test centre, following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Southend-on-sea, Britain September 17, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley

Britain's health minister on Friday disputed questioning from a reporter who cast the coronavirus testing system as a barely functioning chaotic shambles, instead praising the head of the system for extraordinary work and saying it was not a mess.

Asked by LBC radio why the testing system was such a "shambles", Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Dido Harding, who is in charge of the system, had done an "an extraordinary job."

Asked why the system was chaotic, inefficient and barely functional, Hancock said: "Those three things are not true - they are wrong."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Andy Bruce)

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